Posted on 06/27/2012 9:25:58 PM PDT by Olog-hai
After desperately trying everything from huge budget cuts to secret negotiations with creditors, the Stockton City Council finally ran out of options Tuesday night and voted to file for bankruptcy.
The 6-1 vote was to authorize a day-to-day operating budget, called a pendency plan, that will go into effect when city officials file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Sacramento. That filing is expected Wednesday.
Stockton, a river port with 292,000 residents, will become the biggest city in U.S. history to vote itself into bankruptcy. The previous largest bankrupt city was Vallejo, which filed in 2008 and resumed solvency last year.
A federal judge will now be charged with deciding how much money on the dollar Stockton will pay creditors and how the city will restructure its budgets in the future.
Bankruptcy became the only option after the city failed to erase a $26 million deficit or to renegotiate millions of dollars it owes in retiree health benefits and on huge civic projects it built in the past decade.
The benefits and civic projects, including a new arena and City Hall, were developed during the boom years of the early 2000s. But after the national housing collapse that began around 2008, revenues from property taxes and other sources dried up.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Obama world-more to come!
Welcome to the club, bro--we've been saving seats for you guys for a few years now.
Al the while we capt saying you cant afford to offer that, they kept on hiring and offering.
Take the needed money from the DNC to make good on the retirements.
Sadly the Dems have always know that the FED will cover the ridiculous DNC spending done here in CA.
It begins. More will follow.
Look for govt pension plans to be totally redone and greatly reduced. It’s what is killing many many cities, huge employee pensions that employees hardly have to put anything into, if at all.
Declaring bankruptcy is the only way cities can legally change a govt pension plan.
What kind of insurance costs $1,500 a month? I've got a great plan and the cost for my wife and I is $750.00 a month.
Need some help here, what am I missing on this one.
Great comment. Says a lot in very few words.
This is the case all over the country. City after city, every dime that comes in goes to support retired employees. And they are not the bad guys. The bad buys made the promises and didn’t fund them and they are long gone.
So what do you do? God knows but of the retirees aren’t willing to take less they are going to end up with nothing.
What kind of insurance costs $1,500 a month? I’ve got a great plan and the cost for my wife and I is $750.00 a month.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
It must cost more than that because he says he can’t afford it if the city reduces its 1500 monthly contribution and we know the Union is probably matching the city funds (YEAH RIGHT) plus what he puts in.. oh yes, it looks like he is retired at 57, probably with a sweetheart deal also.
Like Rev Wright said “The chickens is comin’ home to roost”.
It must include vet bills for your pets and some extra vacation in there....
These people think they worked hard and I don’t deny they did but they did not create any wealth.
And this is the core problem. They consume more then they produced.
Don’t send Texas the bill.
California is doing OK because revenue is growing 20 times faster than spending.
Debt is decreasing and the state economy is growing.
Exactly!
Heck...all of Oregon is heading that way...
We have a plan thru the company my husband took early retirement from...costs us over $1000 a month for 2...we’re thinking of dropping it...since most of our bills aren’t covered anyway...it’s just hard to find catastrophic that is much cheaper than that.
It looks like Barry’s “recovery” is kickin’ in.
All U.S. cities need conservatism in them, very badly!
Does the home know that you've escaped, doofus?
Does the home know that you've escaped, doofus?
Of course the greedy unions are just as bad, or worse, than the idiots who agreed to absurd future benefits. They simply assumed that, whether future taxpayers could afford the absurd benefits or not, they would be forced to pay anyway.
Wrong, you idiots.
Simple math easily demonstrates that the agreements were impossible. Some were pointing it out and were summarily ignored.
The greedy's reach always exceeds their grasp.
And they continue indignantly to shrilly whine that they are the victims in the fraud or the incompetence.
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